honestly i didn't notice the vampire thing but maybe i should have (part 2 of 3)

Everything she ate was making her sick. Claire spent the last two days of her vacation barely conscious, sleeping like the dead for 14 hours a day. When she was awake, she had absolutely no energy. It was insane and totally unlike her. Being tired all the time was typical, but not to that extreme. And she usually struggled to manage 7 hours of sleep a day.

It was bad to the point where she went to a doctor and had some blood tests done to satisfy the doctor’s theory that she had low sodium and potassium. She nearly had a heart-attack when the nurse asked if she was possibly pregnant: it seemed very very very unlikely, but she was suddenly bone-deep terrified that she might be. Luckily, she was not. After that scare, it was almost a relief to have a mysterious problem. Far better the demon that you don’t know than pregnancy.

She got a call the next day- the tests had come back normal with the exception of low levels of carbon dioxide. That could indicate a liver problem, but in her case, the doctor delicately explained that it was much more likely to be a result of her on-again-off-again eating disorder.

So that was great. She was stressed about the damage she’d done to her body, she had no answers, and she was still tired all the time.

It was just really lucky that Vicky was there. Claire mentally shut off and let her older sister take over. Claire had to fire up her email a couple of times and forward Vicky ticket information, but it was easy to do things when she was explicitly told what to do. She was walking through the airport at their first transfer when she realized she didn’t remember leaving Chicago. Like. She didn’t remember saying goodbye to Mom, or how she’d gotten there.

Discomfited, Claire looked at Vicky. Her sister was pulling two suitcases, holding a stuffed shark and jellyfish from the aquarium, and hefting a bag full of books. Claire was holding both of their purses and wearing a backpack with neck pillows and her laptop.

…That wasn’t very even, was it.

“Gate A36,” Vicky said briskly. “Not much further.”

This was the really long flight, she remembered. To Seoul. And then they’d take one last flight to Osaka. After that, she just had to get on the bus. In about 24 hours, she’d be home.

The flight was long. Her ass hurt from sitting. They gave her way too much food and she didn’t eat any of it. All she wanted was to drink. She asked for water every time a staff member went by and she was still thirsty.

She looked over at Vicky, who had gotten seated across the row. Vicky was in the process of putting on a face mask. She had headphones in. She lifted an eyebrow and held up the little pot that the facemask had come from in a silent question.

Why not. Flights were drying. Claire leaned across the aisle and took it- oh, took them. There were two containers. Claire glanced at her sister to be sure she was doing it right. The little black commas went under her eyes, and then she patted the thick lotion onto the rest of her face.

She heard a distinct “sniff.”

The hair on the back of her neck stood up.

It wasn’t the sound that was weird. It was how close it had been. Claire twisted in her seat to see into the row behind her.

The man in that seat was leaned all the way forward. He had big, crazy eyes, and they were intent on her.

Something sent off the ‘fight or flight’ portion of her brain, but what she actually did was freeze. That was familiar- going still and nonverbal had usually made her a less interesting target if one of her parents was in a hitting mood.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t look away. He just stared at her.

Nothing should have been intimidating about him. He was a man in a blue t-shirt and his 30s, with a slight softness to his face and a total lack of stubble. He looked clean and mediocre. But something about him was off as fuck. Her hindbrain knew it.

Claire slammed herself back into her seat, in the exact center so that her weirdo neighbor could not see her. She remained on high alert for the rest of the 14-hour flight.

When they finally got off the airplane in Osaka, they did the lazy thing and lugged their checked bags to the post office counter. They divided and had mailed their luggage to their respective apartments. With their belongings paired down to a purse each and a leather bag with their laptops in it, the going was a lot easier.

“We have a long bus ride to your place.” Vicky rubbed an oil-based makeup remover onto her face in the restroom. Claire splashed at her face with water. “Let’s get dinner first. Yakiniku?”

She slanted her sister a sideways glance. Vicky was busy washing off the cleanser and didn’t see. “That’s fine,” Claire agreed. It was not a surprising suggestion. Vicky’s favorite foods were almost all in the genre “there’s a lot of meat, and I apply some fire to it. And then I eat it right then.”

And it was a good call for the moment, anyway. It seemed like her stomach was less upset by simple things at this point. The more sauces and seasonings and carbs she had, the more likely she was to get sick. Grilled meat and vegetables could not possibly go wrong.

When Vicky handed her the bottle of sunscreen, Claire only sighed a little before she started applying it to her face, neck, and hands. It was a good habit. She really should be more consistent about that, especially since she had the ‘freckled redhead’ complexion that their mother did.

Popular wisdom did say that your parents were your best predictor for how you would age, after all. And the future foretold by their mother was a cautionary tale. Mom had looked 10 years younger than her actual age until about 45, when her skincare sins had caught up with her all at once. She looked like the friggin cryptkeeper now. She had wrinkles that belonged on an unlucky 80 year-old.

Dad wasn’t much better. He’d had less sunburns than their mother, who had regarded it as some weird badge of honor that proved her lack of vanity. But he’d had his share of burns, and been on par with Mom for how he smoked and drank and did all the things that aged a body fast.

She made sure to get the sunscreen in her ears. Even though it was almost 5:00 pm, and the sun would be down in twenty minutes.

The closest yakiniku place turned out to be one of the busy chains, with rows full of booths instead of private rooms. They snagged a seat near the windows and ordered their usual assortment of beef and pork. Claire drifted off a bit while they waited.

This constant exhaustion was bizarre. She’d never experienced anything like it, except the time she’d had mono.

“Claire. Hey. Claire!” Vicky tapped the table.

She startled. Belatedly, she processed that her sister had been talking to her.

Vicky frowned. “You didn’t hear anything I said, did you?”

Claire cringed and let her face speak for her. “I don’t even remember getting on the flight,” she said. “Did we take the hotel shuttle? Or did Mom drop us off?”

Vicky sucked in air through her teeth. “Wow, that’s sad. The shuttle. We said goodbye to Mom the night before. She kept you back a while, she wanted to say something about your student loans.” Vicky coughed a laugh. “I, uh. I hope it wasn’t anything important.”

“I might be happier not remembering,” Claire mused. That topic was a one-way street to stressing on the verge of tears. Vicky took care of the paperwork related to that and taxes for her. Claire could handle the controlled stress of putting aside the appropriate amount of money each month. But she totally shut down if they needed anything else from her, even as simple as a “signature to confirm you understand the changes.”

“I’m only going to stay the night,” Vicky said.

Claire blinked, because that was a change of plans.

“I’m anxious to pick Waffles up from the kitty daycare,” she admitted. “I’ve never left her this long before. Besides, I have a class on Saturday morning. If I go home Friday morning, I might be able to get enough done and rest in order to make it to practice.”

“Ah,” Claire agreed. “That makes sense. I’m sure I won’t be great company anyway. I think I’m just going to sleep all weekend.” She grimaced. “Can’t believe I have work on Monday. That doesn’t feel real.”

“Don’t depress me,” Vicky said darkly. “If you speak it, it becomes more real.”

Their food finally came, and Claire was relieved to be right about what was safe to eat. She stuck to beef, onion, mushrooms, and corn with no stomach pain.  

They stood to leave. A family with three crying children was clustered at the register, and a man in a blue shirt was walking out the door. Someone else was loitering in the entrance, maybe waiting to be seated. A waitress was in their path taking the next table’s order. She pulled the clipboard out of her black apron as they watched.

They exchanged glances. “I’ll wait in line,” Claire said. It made Vicky anxious to pay bills. And she also was not at all a fan of feeling crowded.

“I need to use the restroom anyway.” Vicky accepted the out gracefully and went in the other direction.

Claire paid, snagged a green apple sucker for each of them, and met her sister outside. The bus station was busy at 7pm, with people making the commute home after doing overtime or snagging a Friday night drink with coworkers before heading home. She usually didn’t mind crowds, but even Claire was feeling uneasy.

The feeling dissolved as soon as she got on her seat. The bus wasn’t particularly comfortable, but it was all downhill from here. It would drop her off a 5-minute walk from her apartment complex.

She slept the whole ride. She didn’t feel any stress about it, either, because hers was the last stop. There was no chance of missing her bus station.

They arrived a little before 10pm, bleary-eyed and too tired to want to talk. Vicky lagged behind a bit on the stairs, but Claire was so used to her 4th floor apartment that the stairs didn’t slow her at all. She was so happy to see her apartment that she almost cried. And it felt good to come back to a spotless home. She noticed the sheen on her stovetop, the perfectly arranged starfish and seashell shaped pillows on her grey couch, and the empty trash cans with a sense of satisfaction. She ruined the look of her pink and green cactus bedspread when she flopped onto it, but that was fine.

She heard the sound of a purse being set on the entry room table, next to hers. Vicky said something indistinct that Claire didn’t try to understand. The fridge opened and then shut just as quickly- yeah, there wasn’t much in it. After a moment, Vicky entered the bedroom and rolled shut the sliding door to keep the air conditioning in.

Claire rolled over onto her back and thought, guiltily, that if she was a good hostess she would pull out the futon for her sister.

But she wasn’t, so she just watched.

“I’m disgusting,” Vicky said. The futon thumped when she dropped it on the floor. She stepped on it on her way to get the blanket from the same closet. “Is it okay if I shower first?”

“Go ahead,” Claire said. She’d sweated just as much, but it was hard to want to move at this point.

The only reason she showered at all was the knowledge that her sister would know she was being gross and lazy. Once clean, she re-collapsed onto her bed and went the hell to sleep to the sounds of her ‘rain is falling somewhere with birds’ cd.

Vicky woke her up by going to the bathroom around 7:30. She apologized, but instead of trying to sleep a little more, they decided to get breakfast together at a café.

Vicky left Friday, around 10:00am. Once she was alone Claire slept through Friday and Saturday, with the exception of her 8-10pm Friday night jiu jitsu class. Claire had her eye on the next promotion and she would not miss class for hell or high water.

Sunday was relaxed. She went to her massage appointment in the morning, and then she hung out on the beach with a grill and a rotating group of friends under a shade tent. They stayed out until 9, well after the sun had set. Claire took two friends back in her car, so it took her almost 90 minutes to stagger in her door. She put her purse down inside the door, she peeled off her shoes, and she went directly to the laundry room. She wrestled to get her shirt off over her head and put it directly in the washer, along with her sandy towel and her swimsuit.

She was pouring detergent into the washer when she heard a thump.

‘It sounded close. It sounded inside. No, maybe like a knock on the wall? Or the door.’

Claire went completely still. She wasn’t breathing.

‘Did I lock the door?’ She strained to remember- she almost never did it consciously, but it was such a reflex. Surely she had.

A long second passed. There was no sound at all, since she was still holding her breath. Claire swallowed and forced herself to start breathing normally. She was freaking herself out over nothing. She shut the lid to the washer and started it.

With faked nonchalance, Claire decided to pull on a towel and walk around her house before she got in the shower. She did a quick check- the door was locked- and poked her head in every room. The only place a human could hope to hide in her house was in her bedroom closet, but it was empty. Her phone was nearly dead, so she plugged it in.

She took several deep breaths, turned on some music, and went to take her shower. It must have been her neighbor in the adjoining apartment. She’d thought that the sound had been coming from the other side, but she had simply been wrong. Mr. Fujioka had probably gotten up in the dark and banged his elbow into the wall on his way to the bathroom. Perfectly plausible. She did that kind of thing fairly often.

She combed some yuzu oil into her hair and twisted it up with metal clip. She stepped out, and felt better. Her house wasn’t creepy like this, with the sound of the washer running, the scent of body soap on the air, and the pop music playing from her ipod competing with the soothing ocean sounds on the cd player in her bedroom. She closed the music on her ipod and turned it off as she padded into her bedroom. She switched on the oscillating fan, picked up her phone to set tomorrow’s alarm, and shrieked.

The man sitting on the end of her bed gave her a cool look. He pulled at his light blue t-shirt. “Do you think I can use your washer once you’re done?” he asked mildly.

Claire found that she was backed up by the closet. The door was about 6 feet to her left.

He caught her looking at it and smiled. He unfolded his legs and stretched them, so that his feet were caressing her rug. It was definitely deliberate.

‘Oh my god. Oh my god. What the fuck, what the fuck.’

Her heartbeat was going way too fast.

How did he get in? She’d checked, she’d locked the door. She had a sliding door in her bedroom as well, but it only led to her balcony. She had no idea if that had been locked, but it shouldn’t have mattered. She lived on the 4th floor, what the fuck.

“I knew you were like me,” he said. He had a pleasant smile. She really, really did not like that. “I wouldn’t have been able to get in here if you weren’t.”

Her nerves snapped a little. “How did you-“ She cut herself off. She didn’t know what might provoke him. Be quiet, shut the fuck up, see what he wants.

“Find you again?” he completed. His eyes crinkled when he smiled. He had a very mild, quiet voice. She almost had to lean in to hear him.

That was not what she had been about to ask.

‘Again? I don’t remember seeing you before in my life.’

She did not give voice to that thought. Which was probably good. He might take it as an insult.

But there was nothing memorable about him. He looked kinda average. Late 20s to mid 30s (she was seriously bad at judging ages), average weight, wearing jeans and a t shirt. Well. That was a little weird, a t-shirt was a little casual for most adults in Japan. He had a slightly round face, medium toned skin… nothing asymmetrical or particularly notable about him.

Claire was trying, really hard, to think of something about him that could give her a clue. His haircut lacked styling, she noticed. It didn’t look very Japanese, it just looked like he was aware hair was a thing to be occasionally cut. No gel, no bangs, none of that thing where there was longer hair at the top than at the sides.

Oh. The creep from the plane? She stared and her mind raced, trying to confirm it. That had been a flight from Denver to Seoul. There was no reason for that person to have ended up in Japan. It couldn’t be.

It was her best theory. It would explain why he wasn’t wearing at least a polo shirt, and why his hair didn’t match what she’d expect to see.

She couldn’t confirm it, though. She had no idea what the face on the plane had looked like and wouldn’t have bothered to try to remember it. She couldn’t reliably recognize her own students when she saw them out of uniform. When she scrolled Facebook and saw photos of people she’d gone to college with 3 years ago, she wouldn’t be able to pick who had been her classmate out of a group photo. Her brain just didn’t work that way. Hair, clothes, voice- that she could remember. Faces held as much meaning for her as descriptions of cars did.

His smile was turning strained.

She nodded. “Yes,” Claire said, just to be agreeable He didn’t like waiting. She retained the information.

“Your friend said your name,” he explained. “And I saw the bus that you got on.” He seemed proud of himself. "There’s not that many Westerners here. I searched your name and the cities that the bus stopped in.” He crossed his legs again. "You work at the elementary school. I went there first, it’s a nice little place. They posted some pictures of you on their website.”

What. The. Fuck.

‘I definitely never gave permission for that.’

That was some bullshit. And she completely believed it. Japanese privacy laws were strict, but no one ever seemed to register that non-Japanese people had rights too. Jesus fucking Christ. They’d posted her name and her face and where she worked. From there, it would not be hard to track down the only non-East Asian person living in a small town, because god only knows literally everyone in town knew where she lived. Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

'If he doesn’t kill me, I’m going to have to have a meeting with my supervisor.’

“That was logical,” Claire managed. He seemed to be waiting for some kind of praise, a pat on the head for being clever. She swallowed.

…He seemed to want her to talk. She should say something.

“Why are you here?”

That wasn’t too inflammatory, was it? He seemed placated.

‘What can I do? Am I stronger than he is? He’s bigger than me, but not by much.’

“Because you’re like me,” he said warmly. She shuddered and hoped her face wasn’t saying that she thought he was crazy.

Everything she knew in jiu jitsu was good for getting someone to the ground, maybe to pin them and keep them down. Or throw them, to disorient long enough to run away.

She would not be able to run across her apartment, unlock the door, and get down all the stairs safely. Even if she made it that far, she wasn’t a fast runner, so he’d catch her on the ground. There was no one around.

"I tried to find companions before,” he said. No, admitted. It sounded like he was admitting something. “I’m not particularly- I don’t need anyone else,” he said. His tone rose a little for the first time. He was getting agitated.

“Right,” she agreed, just to keep his ego placated. He had a major insecurity there. “Of course not.”

‘If I got him to the ground and in an arm-bar… Then what? Could I keep him still and call the police? …Maybe?’

Except she didn’t remember the emergency service number in Japan. Could she restrain a man, grab her phone, search the number, and then keep him down the whole time while she made a phone call in Japanese that would probably be way above her abilities? And keep him still even while she waited for the police to arrive from the station? She knew it was a 15 minute drive away, it was right next to city hall. She knew someone who worked there.

He seemed to relax a bit. She hadn’t noticed that he’d straightened his posture and pushed his feet apart, but she noticed now that he leaned back a little. Like he’d been on the verge of standing up.

‘And my door is locked, of course. It’s going to take a long time for anyone to get in here to help me.’

No, she realized, stomach sinking. She couldn’t keep him restrained long enough for someone else to come. She’d get tired, or he’d get lucky.

"But to be honest, I always end up accidentally killing them.” He shrugged, all ‘what can you do.’

Her blood ran cold. She stared at him.

‘Did he just admit to killing people?’

“Don’t judge,” he warned. He had a mean look twisting his otherwise pleasant face. “You wouldn’t be a vampire unless you killed and drank human blood at least once.” He sneered. “You’re the weakest vampire I’ve ever seen- but I smelled it on you. You must be very young.”

‘Oh my god. This crazy person is going to kill me.’

“Human blood,” she repeated. Her tone was faint. “I think I would remember.”

He snorted. “You’re still changing,” he said dismissively. “You don’t know anything, little idiot. I bet you barely remember the last few days.”

That aggression was bad. Very bad. Her well-honed sense of self-preservation reared up. She didn’t want him to kill her. And if he decided she was contemptible instead of interesting, it would come down to a fight.

'He said he killed people trying to make a companion. Trying to make a vampire.’

He thought she was already a vampire. She needed to play along.

“Why am I weak?” she asked. And- yes. His temper smoothed away. He liked it when she asked him questions. He liked to show off.

“You haven’t drank enough, clearly.” He lifted his chin. She got the impression that it was an attempt to look worldly. “Aren’t you thirsty?” He coaxed. He looked so friendly.

And he was actually right.

Claire pressed her lips together and nodded. She was thirsty. She was thirsty all the time. But that was even easier to ignore than hunger, which she had a lot of practice at. She had a lot more willpower than she had desire.

“Of course you are,” he empathized. He sounded so sincere. “Right now, you have more negative side effects than you have the benefits. I’ve seen you- you’re trying to feed that thirst with animal products. But there’s only one thing that will really satisfy you.” He stood. He held out a hand. “Let me show you,” he said helpfully.

He was suggesting that they go out and kill a person and drink their blood. “No, thank you,” Claire said stiffly. Politely, because she didn’t want him to lose his temper. But she could not play along with that even to save her own skin.

He watched her for a moment, brown eyes glittering.

She felt her shoulders creep up towards her neck.

Then he laughed, and the tension fell. A bit. “Not tonight,” he conceded. His expression was insufferably smug. “But you will.” And then the crazy fucker opened her window. She watched, befuddled, as he stepped onto the lavender growing in the sill, heaved a leg over the metal railing, and gave her a wink. And then he twisted his body to fall head first.

…four stories, onto concrete.

There was a thud. It was followed by what she suspected was the sound of her neighbor’s large flowerpot breaking. The one that the big gray stray cat liked to tinkle in.

Um.

Okay.

“Well, that resolved itself,” Claire said. She felt numb. And just supremely confused about what had happened.

Her hands were shaking.

…If she called the police, they were going to think she had killed that crazy man. It was going to be hard to prove that she didn’t know him- honestly, who the fuck did something like this? Who broke into someone’s house and then accidentally killed themselves just outside? It was- it was just rude, it what it was.

Would it be more or less suspicious to send a text message to the police officer who she knew? He went to her jiu jitsu class. His English was better than her Japanese, and he could always run it through a translation app if he had troubles. It would be a lot easier than calling and trying to explain over the phone.

Or maybe she should call her supervisor. She needed to have a talk with him anyways.

This had not been in the handbook.

Slowly, she forced herself to approach the window. She didn’t really want to look down, but she had to check.

It was hard to see. She squinted and leaned over as far as she dared, but she couldn’t see anything. Just shadowy shapes. Didn’t see one that looked large enough to be a human body, but he might have, um, bounced or rolled a bit into the parking area.

She closed her window. She locked it. She went through her house, making sure that every window was locked, and her sliding door too. It had been open. But more importantly, the large window in her kitchen hadn’t been locked. It faced the landing outside her apartment door. That must have been how he got in- he would have had to lift himself a little, but it was doable. She was pretty sure that she could do it. And then she sat on her bed for just a moment before remembering that man had been on it. Claire sprang up and went into the living room, feeling sick. She paced in front of the couch.

She needed to call someone. She needed to do something.

She should check that the body was actually there. She should- if he had survived, she should call emergency services for him. It was probably a crime not to.

There was just no way, she thought. She felt sick. There was no way that she could go down there alone in the dark to look for the body of a man who had broken into her home.

Claire wasted at least 20 minutes arguing with herself on the verge of tears. The only thing that roused her was a beep. Her phone. She drifted into her room on autopilot to answer it. It was late, who would message her- oh, Vicky? Vicky might know what to do.

She unplugged the phone and stared with a lack of comprehension at the alert. It was a photo, from an unknown number. Slowly, she punched in her passcode. She wondered if someone who had been watching her might have memorized it. He’d been sitting behind her on the plane. That would have been easy, actually.

She opened the message. It was kind of hard to see what she was looking at, because it was dark. A second message landed. This one had clearly been taken with flash on.

That looked like a body. That looked a lot like a body. It looked like an older man with a craggy face and blood trickling down into his shirt.

A smiley face popped up.

Then the emoji of a hungry little yellow face, tongue out to the side.

You’re missing out.

Want some?

With her doors and windows locked, Claire heaved a shuddering breath. He couldn’t get in. He must have slipped in and hid somewhere she hadn’t thought of. She had to be at least a little brave. She couldn’t play into his game. “Stay away from me,” she wrote.

His answer was fast.

Go ahead and call the police. Tell them there’s a body by the dock, if you really want to.

But I bet anything there’s a body with your saliva on it somewhere between where you were 4 days ago and where you are now.

You don’t want that kind of attention.

She had a flash of doubt- but that was stupid. She was not a vampire, they were not real. She would have noticed if someone had bit her, and she would have noticed if she had killed someone and drank their blood. It really seemed like it would be memorable. Even with the weird funk she had been in.

..It was just..

There had been a lot of weird things lately. She was so tired with no reason for it. She was thirsty all the time. And she had gotten diarrhea every time she’d had a little garlic.

That was stupid, though. That didn’t make her a vampire. Weren’t they supposed to be warded away by garlic, not have tummy troubles?

…He did say that she was weak.

And how could she actually know a vampire would be able to do, anyway. Dracula was not an encyclopedia. Although it had claimed he had a lot of powers that the popular culture vampire didn’t, if she remembered right. Turning into smoke. Something about mirrors- it wasn’t the thing where he couldn’t be seen, or was it? And hypnotism, something like that.

It was a phenomenally stupid test that would prove nothing except to herself, but she marched into her kitchen and shucked the skin off of a clove of garlic. She had the feeling that her fingers were burning- but that was psychosomatic, like how she sometimes thought she was having an allergic reaction just because she was worried she might. She popped the whole clove in her mouth angrily and bit down.

And then she spat it out with a yelp. Her whole body rebelled. She backed away so fast that her back hit the fridge. Her tongue was on fire. It felt like she’d gotten an acid into an open cut. Jesus, jesus.

She sank to the floor, rocking back and forth. Then she struggled up and went to the sink in the laundry room where her toothbrush was. She rinsed her mouth- and it came out red. With little bits. Of something.

Claire watched blood and skin from the inside of her cheeks slowly make their way down the drain. Her mind was quiet. Her mouth still hurt, but the water had helped quite a bit. She was a little afraid to use her toothbrush, because the abrasion might peel more skin off.

Blood dripped down her chin. It landed on the edge of the sink. She leaned forward automatically to protect her rug. The move put her way too close to her own reflection, who she could see was wide-eyed and pale. Her pupils were expanded to cover almost all the blue in her eyes.

“Okay,” she said. It came out nasal. "I’m the one person stupid enough not to realize they’ve been bit by a vampire.”

That just figured. If anyone in the world had to be that unobservant, it might have to be her.

…Seriously, when could that have happened? While she was in the United States, for sure. She had been there for almost a week before she’d started to feel weird. She had lost some time, but that had happened after her symptoms had started, so that probably wasn’t it, right?

..Oh, shit. She thought about what, exactly, her sister had told her about the time frame that she didn’t remember.

She licked her lips. Her realization came out as a question. “I think maybe I ate my mom?”